Mixed Signals (14 page)

M
onday morning I'm stopped at a malfunctioning traffic light that stays red for three minutes but remains green for only fifteen seconds. I know this because I've been stuck here for six cycles and timed it on the fourth. The song I was singing along to ends. I change the station back to
BS Morning Sports Talk
. For the entire commute, I've been punching the radio's buttons, alternating between music and the sports station. Talking to Nico yesterday has put me on edge. Branigan is up to something. Otherwise, Nico wouldn't have called. So far, though, they have been talking about nothing but baseball on the show.

“We're going to switch gears for the third hour of the program,” Branigan announces. “Nico's ex-fiancée hasn't returned the ring to Nico.” My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “We want to hear from you. Does she have the right to keep it, or should she give it back?”

The first caller is Kevin from Ayer. “Hell yeah, she should return it,” he says. “If she won't give it back willingly, take it forcefully, man. Finger and all.”

The driver in the car next to mine laughs. I hope he's listening to something else.

The light turns green. I accelerate through the intersection, barely making it through before the signal goes back to red. Smyth takes another call: Susan from Somerville. “Hasn't the poor girl had enough heartache?” she asks. “Let her keep the ring.”

A long line of slow-moving vehicles coming from the opposite direction prevents me from turning left. I edge out, hoping someone will stop. A woman in a CR-V blasts her horn, almost clipping my front bumper as she creeps by. Like it would have killed her to stop? Honestly. A man in a pickup motions for me to go. I wave as I cross in front of him.

Natasha, an attorney from Framingham, is next on the show. She has this to offer: “The engagement ring is a conditional gift—the condition being that a marriage will take place. If it doesn't, the agreement is null and void.”

As I pull into the parking garage at work, Branigan takes a call from Frank from South Boston, but it's definitely my landlord's voice that comes over the airwaves. I sit in my car listening to what he has to say. “When did this show turn into a soap opera?” Mr. O'Brien asks. “Aren't you fools supposed to be talking about sports?”

“Okay, Frank,” Branigan says. “We'll talk about sports right after the break. For you callers we didn't get to, cast a vote on our website.”

Cast a vote on the website? I walk into the building outraged by how far Branigan is taking his revenge. In my aisle, Ben and Renee are sitting in his cube drinking coffee. “There's my date to your party,” Ben says as I join them.

“I'm glad you're coming, sweetie,” Renee says as she stands to return to her desk.

“What made you change your mind?” Ben asks.

“I need to get out and have fun.”

He cocks his head. “I'll be sure you have fun,” he says in flirty voice. “I'll make it a night you can't forget.”

“That's what I'm counting on.” I wink at him.

* * *

It's like picking a scab, causing it to bleed again, the way I keep visiting the radio station's website to check on the survey results, feeling more disappointed each time I do. More than 95 percent of respondents think I should return the ring, 2 percent say I should keep it, and the rest don't care.

“How many times are you going to look at that?” Ben asks. It's the fourth time he's caught me on the site today. He places the printout of the new brochure he's designing on the desk beside me. “All the text doesn't fit. Can you cut some out?”

I look through the copy while he leans over my shoulder reading my computer screen. After going through the brochure a few times, I strike out a paragraph. As I'm reviewing the copy again to ensure everything still makes sense, Ben asks, “Why don't you return the ring to Nico?”

I add two new sentences before responding. “He's never asked for it.”

Ben rolls his eyes and points toward my monitor. “This is his passive-aggressive way of asking.”

“Yeah, well, he's going to have to man up.”

Ben shrugs. “If you want to show him that you're over him and have moved on, you should give it back.”

I hand the brochure to him without saying anything.

“Maybe you're not over him,” Ben says before leaving.

After he leaves, I look at the survey results again. The percentage of respondents saying I should return the ring has jumped to 97. I tell myself that I'm keeping it because after everything Nico's done, he doesn't deserve it back. In the back of my mind though, the tiny voice that doesn't let me get away with anything whispers
, You're keeping it because you think you'll wear it again someday.

* * *

All twenty-seven members of sales and marketing are sitting around the conference room table waiting for Brian from IT to connect Stacy's laptop to a projector. She's previewing our new website to the team today. A bright light shines on the ceiling as the IT guy fiddles with the projector. He adjusts its height and the light moves off the ceiling down the wall. After he presses a few buttons on Stacy's computer, the image of the new home page fills the white screen.

The conversations around the table end. A few people gasp. “Wow.”

“This is the beta version of our new website,” Stacy announces. She highlights the company's name, Cyber Security Consultants, and points to the logo, a lock with the acronym CSC written out in what looks like a string of binary numbers. She toggles to another screen to compare the new image with the old CyberCrimeBusters logo, a cartoon of a burglar typing on a keyboard. “Much more professional, wouldn't you say?”

She previews the site page by page, starting with the About Us section. She clicks on an employee profile that focuses on Lucas and enlarges his picture. No one recognizes him because he's wearing a dress shirt and tie instead of his usual flannel shirt and skull cap. “Highlighting a staff member is a great new feature,” Stacy says.

Everyone around the table nods in agreement.

As Stacy shares the site, she occasionally looks at Renee, Ben, or me and smiles. Each time she does, Ben nudges my foot with his while Renee elbows me.

“What did you think?” Stacy asks after showing the last page. “Did you see anything that you'd change?”

Ryan raises his hand, which isn't at all surprising. He has to talk during every meeting to show how smart he is. Usually, he proves the opposite. “The graphics in the banner should have more variety.”

Ben folds his arms across his chest. “They need consistency to tie the site together.”

“It's all the same. It's boring,” Ryan says.

“There are subtle differences,” Ben counters.

“Give me an example of a site you like,” Stacy says to Ryan.

The room is quiet while Ryan tries to think of one. Of course he didn't have anything in mind. He just spoke to hear himself talk.

Renee sneezes. We all say “Bless you.” The silence returns.

“You can't give us an example?” Stacy asks.

“One,” Ryan finally says. He glances at me. “
www.wspr.com
.”

My muscles stiffen as Stacy types the URL into the browser. The radio station's home page appears. The banner displaying logos of all Boston's sports teams comes up first. Then the menu listing each of the station's shows across the top of the screen appears. “Click on any of those,” Ryan instructs. “You'll see the pages that come up are different.”

Stacy moves her cursor to the first link, which of course is the one for the morning show. She clicks her mouse.
BS Morning Sports Talk
's page fills the screen. In big bold letters, the headline across the top of the page screams:
SHOULD JILLIAN RETURN THE RING?
There are two radio buttons, one labeled
Yes
, the other with
No.
The survey's up-to-the-minute results appear below, showing that 97.8 percent of listeners think I should give the diamond back.

I push my chair away from the table. I eye the door, thinking about running out of the room. Would that make me look more or less pathetic? More. Definitely more.

Stacy frowns as her mouse moves across the copy. My coworkers stare at me. I look down at the table, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

Stacy removes her glasses and taps them against the edge of the table while she studies me.

She turns her attention to Ryan. “I like our treatment of the images better.” She looks at me with what I think is a smile and drags her mouse to the No radio button and clicks on it. Renee and some of the other woman in the room clap. Stacy shuts down her laptop and the screen on the wall goes blank.
Thank God!
“We'll do some minor modifications and be ready to go live in three weeks,” she says.

The meeting ends. Ben quickly stands. “If you would just return the ring, you could end all this,” he says. He rushes out of the room without waiting for Renee or me.

B
en, Renee, and I are at Donovan's, a restaurant down the street from the office. Stacy let us go early after demo-ing the website. It was Renee's idea to come here. I hate this place. There are banks of televisions tuned to sports channels on each wall and above the bar. Whenever Nico and I came here, he'd spend more time paying attention to the games than to me.

“Did I tell you Lenny hired the band that played at our wedding for the party next week?” Renee asks.

“Will you have to check them out of the nursing home for the night?” Ben asks.

Renee swallows the last of her wine. “They're only in their fifties, wise guy.”

“Only,” Ben says, reaching for a nacho. “By the way, what do I wear to this shindig?”

“The suit you wore to the holiday party,” Renee answers. “With a different shirt and tie.”

An image of Ben in his charcoal gray suit and red shirt, the night of the Christmas party, flashes through my mind. He's holding me tight during the last dance of the night, our bodies practically melded together.
This is dangerous, Jill. I wish I were the one going upstairs with you.
I push my empty glass to the side and cast a sideways glance at him, wondering if we'll pick up where we left off that night.

The waitress arrives at our table. “Another round,” Ben says.

Renee shakes her head. “Not for me. Gotta get to Joel's hockey game.”

“Jill, you'll have one more with me?” Ben asks.

Renee and the waitress walk away from the booth together, leaving Ben and me alone.

“What are you wearing to the party?” he asks. “I'll coordinate my shirt to your dress color.”

Leave it to a graphic artist to worry about that detail. I think of Nico with the one suit, white dress shirt, and tie he owns. In a million years, he would never have thought to match his shirt to my dress.

I shrug. “Haven't thought about it yet.”

“How about that blue strapless number you wore to your father's retirement party.” He whistles.

My hand freezes over the plate of nachos. My father retired over four years ago. If Ben hadn't reminded me, I might not have remembered what I wore to the party. “How do you know what I wore?”

“You showed us pictures.”

Bringing in photos of myself to show to my coworkers doesn't sound like something I would do, especially because when my father retired I was new to the company. “I don't remember.” I struggle to pull a nacho out of the pile because the melted cheese is causing all the chips to stick together.

Ben pushes the plate closer to me. “Probably saw them on Facebook then.”

Now I remember. Christian posted pictures from that night and tagged me and Nico. Nico had been elbowed in the face during a basketball game a few days before and had a black eye. He was mad my brother put the pictures on social media. “Oh yeah, Nico's eye was messed up in that picture.”

Ben shrugs. “Don't remember.”

“You remember my dress but not his mangled eye? There were close to two hundred comments on the picture and they were all about Nico's face.”

Ben starts to say something, but the waitress returns with our drinks, a beer for him and a glass of wine for me. As she places them in front of us, I notice a group of women at the bar are checking him out. “I think they're into you,” I say, dipping my head in their direction.

He turns toward them. One of them waves. He looks back at me. “She's not bad,” he says. “Let's find someone for you.” We both search the room. Even though we're in a sports bar, there are definitely more women than men here, probably about four to one. “How about him?” he asks, pointing to a scraggly looking man with greasy blond hair and a long, unkempt beard. The guy's shirt and pants are stained. “Filthy, just like you like them.”

“Oh yeah, the dirtier, the better.”

“I can get pretty dirty,” Ben says in a flirty tone.

“Mmm,” I say, sipping my drink. “You are downright nasty in your color-coordinated outfits.”

Ben looks around the room. “There isn't anyone here who does it for you?”

A bunch of high school boys to our right are shooting spitballs at each other, two old men to our left are staring up at the television, and a really cute boy about eight years old is having dinner with his mother in front of us. “Nope.”

He leans across the table toward me. “Not even me?”

I try to answer in a joking manner, but the look of fear that crossed my face may have already outed me. “Well, that goes without saying. Too bad you don't plug it in at work.” I wink at him.

“I'd make an exception for you.” He sloshes his beer around his glass. “Have you ever thought about us together?”

My face burns as I remember Nico lowering me to the bed in the hotel room after the holiday party, Ben's face popping into my mind, and how I pretended it was Ben in bed with me. He continues to stare at me like he expects an answer. “Nope.” If I could regularly hit notes that high, I might have a career as a lead soprano.

My hand is splayed out on the table. He reaches across and covers it with his, slowly moving his finger back and forth over my wrist. My muscles tighten. “Not even when we were dancing together at the holiday party?” It's a rhetorical question, the way he asks it.

Maybe I should be truthful. Tell him that I fantasized about him. Take Ellie's advice. Invite him back to my apartment. Make the fantasies reality and move on with my life. I take a deep breath in and slowly exhale. “Not even then.” I pull my hand out from under his.

“I think you're lying,” he says. “And I'm looking forward to dancing with you again at Renee's party.”

* * *

In the middle of the night I get up for a glass of water. I make my way downstairs through my dark apartment. A loud thump comes from the kitchen. I freeze in the living room, holding my breath while my heart beats wildly in my chest. I stand that way for several seconds, listening, but there is no other sound. I continue on my way. The light above the stove is on, casting large shadows on the wall. There's another thump. I quickly turn my head in its direction and jump, seeing what I think is a man sitting at the table. When the figure doesn't move, I realize it's not a person at all. It's Nico's jacket. I hear the noise again. This time I know it's the ice maker. I let out the breath I was holding.

Sipping my glass of water, I rest my hand on the back of Nico's coat. The soft leather is cool to my touch. He was wearing this jacket the day I met him. We were sitting next to each other at a Red Sox game. I was there with my brother and sister-in-law, and Nico was with one of his friends. It was early in the season, so when the game started it was warm. By the eighth inning, the temperature had plummeted more than thirty degrees. Although I was wearing a sweatshirt, I was freezing and decided to take the train back to Newton.

“You're leaving with the score tied?” Nico asked. I knew enough about baseball and the Red Sox to have a conversation about the game, and we had spent most of the night talking. “I thought you were a real fan, not a pink hat.” That's what he called people, women especially, who came to the game to socialize instead of watch it.

“It's freezing.”

He slipped off his jacket and handed it to me. “I don't want you to miss Big Papi's walk-off.” He said it like he was absolutely certain David Ortiz would hit a game-winning home run. A few innings later, when he did, Nico pulled me into a tight embrace. After I agreed to have dinner with him the following night, he said I could wear his coat home. “This way I'm sure you won't back out and I get to see you again,” he said. It wasn't until we'd been dating for a year that I realized how much he loved this stupid jacket and what a risk he had taken by letting me leave with it.

He's coming back for it. He has to.